Jackson Lafferty

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight met on May 16, 2007, to review the 2005-2006 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner. The committee would like to thank the Commissioner, Ms. Elaine Keenan-Bengts, for her report and for her appearance before the committee.

The NWT Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, or ATIPP, came into force on December 31, 1996. The purpose of the act is to make public bodies more accountable and protect personal privacy by giving the public a right to access, with limited exceptions...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister is willing to sit down with our current Tlicho leadership. At the same time, I’d like to get some sort of a commitment from the Minister and his department to move forward with this initiative. I realize capacity building is a one-time fund, which really helped out a lot of our communities.

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to ask my follow-up question to the Minister. Is the Minister of MACA open for partnership where the Tlicho Government, Behchoko Community Government, come out with some funds towards this important project. Could the Minister also...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi, colleagues. They were very close.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to have congratulations go out to Marvin Migwi, Rusty Mantla, both who are mentor coaches, and Kyler Apples, Tyler Sage, Gregory Black, Aaron Bekale, Marty Bouvier and Cordelia Bouvier and also their hard, dedicated coach, also like a father-figure for them, Michael Botermans. Mr. Speaker, it’s always, always an honour to recognize these fine, talented Tlicho athletes and we will continue to do so. Mahsi.

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Mahsi, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it has certainly has been a roller coaster ride lately, the last couple of days or a couple of weeks, on this particular SCAN legislation that is before us. I would just like to make it clear that there was an article in the newspaper; of course, don’t believe everything you read or hear. It is not the first time, of course, that the newspaper has done that, but I just want to state my piece here that this whole thing I would like to commend the Minister and his department and staff for bringing this forward.

I know where the Minister’s heart is. He wants to...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker…(English not provided)

Mr. Speaker, just to summarize what I’ve said in the Tlicho language, this bridge that we are talking about here is also in our backyard, the neighbouring Deh Cho area in Fort Providence. We call it…(English not provided)…in our language.

The bridge has already been announced that it’s going to go ahead. We are here debating the accountability, the transparency. It’s true that we should have gotten more information, whether it be business and economic impact models that have been requested by colleagues of mine around the table here. We...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Great Slave, that Committee Report 6-15(6) be received by the Assembly and moved into Committee of the Whole. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are getting somewhere with this so it’s good, it’s a good sign. I guess we’re at the end of our term here. We’re here until next week, but the Minister is still in his capacity until the next couple months. So I would like to find out if the Minister could meet with the community chief, the Tlicho Government and myself to move forward with this possibly I’m hoping next week? If he could commit to that, to sit down about that initiative. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker…(Translation)…earlier, my statement that I made, there’s a sports complex in Behchoko. They have a lot of activities happening in the sportsplex, but it has been closed for awhile for renovations and there were monies allotted to renovate it. (Translation ends)

…our government of Behchoko community and allocated funds from their capacity building fund towards the Behchoko sportsplex, the soon-to-be multi-purpose building, for a comprehensive retrofit and expansion. The redesign will turn the building into a multi-purpose hall including a library, youth centre...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would these staff houses I’m referring to, those GNWT North Slave regional office being transferred to our region, specifically under staff housing, has the Department of the Executive been working with the Tlicho Community Services Agency? Are they working with the Behchoko Development Corporation, the community government of Behchoko? Where are they with that? I understand the regional director is working on it but I’d just like to get a feeling of how far we’re at with that. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. (Translation) Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to talk about the transfers of some positions to the Tlicho region. I’m not sure when this will happen. I’m talking about the staff housing. We’re still not sure about what’s happening with that so I’d like to ask the Premier a question. (Translation ends)

I raised an issue on the North Slave staff being transferred to Behchoko, the soon-to-be headquarters for the Tlicho region. Mr. Speaker, today I’d like to focus on a staff housing initiative that the Executive department is currently undertaking. The question is to the...